


Old Parchment and New Mosaic

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Art, Books, Carthak, Comfort, F/M, Family, Home, Love, Memory, Mosaics, New Beginnings, Nostalgia, Restoration, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: In Carthak, Kalasin seeks solace in old parchment and finds happiness with Kaddar in a new mosaic.





	Old Parchment and New Mosaic

Old Parchment and New Mosaic

Until she came to Carthak, Kalasin had never believed the cooks and mages who insisted smell was the most evocative, the most reminiscent scent. It was only when she was sent away from everyone and everything she had ever known and loved that she noticed the lingering smells of her family and Tortall clinging to the possessions she had brought with her when she sailed to Carthak. The parchment in books especially seemed to have absorbed the subtle aromas of her family that she had never realized existed until she was parted from them to begin her marriage in a strange empire. 

That meant in Carthak she sought her books out for comfort more than she ever had in Tortall, which was how Kaddar discovered her one morning kneeling amidst her chests, inhaling the scent that carried the memory of her family–of love–in the dusty parchment of her books that had made the long journey with her to this land that still felt so distant though she lived in it. 

“You should stop torturing yourself smelling old parchment.” Kaddar sank to the carpet beside her and tried to gently pry the book she was holding from her hands, but she clutched it to her heart as if it were her own flesh and blood rather than ink and parchment. “It’s unhealthy if the way it makes you sneeze is any indication, my dear.” 

“This old parchment reminds me of my home and my family more than anything else.” Kalasin could feel tingle that heralded a sneeze deep in her nose and sniffed it back, determined not to prove her husband right so swiftly. 

“Whenever I resist one of your proposed reforms that will shatter centuries of Carthaki custom, you’re always insisting that I should embrace new beginnings and free myself from the chains of the past.” Kaddar’s kiss across her crinkled forehead removed any scorpion sting from his words. 

“Home and family aren’t chains,” pointed out Kalasin even as she allowed Kaddar to cradle her in his arms. 

“That’s not what I meant.” Kaddar’s fingers tangled in the long black hair he seemed to find so seductive on her. “What I was trying to say, however clumsily, is that you must build a new home and family for yourself here with me, my love.” 

“It’s rather soon to be talking about a family when we’ve only been married for a month, Kaddar.” Kalasin’s book fell to the floor as her palms flew to cup her womb protectively. She understood that bearing children was the purpose of an imperial marriage–she and Kaddar certainly didn’t use a charm to ward against pregnancy–but she wasn’t in any breakneck rush to conceive. 

“You’re very stubborn about misinterpreting everything that comes out of my mouth.” Kaddar’s kisses had drifted over to the shell of her ear. “Our family can be just the two of us until the gods favor us with a child. For many years, my mother and I were a family of two after my father’s untimely death. The two of us can find happiness together, just as my mother and I did.” 

“I’m not feeling happy now.” Wistful for her family and Tortall, Kalasin gave the cover of the book she had dropped a melancholy stroke as her throat tightened with longing for a place and time to which she could never truly return. “I’m feeling homesick.” 

“Let’s explore Thak City together.” Kaddar squeezed the nape of her neck. “An adventure always lifts your spirit and makes you forget your troubles.” 

Abruptly eager to stretch her legs that were cramped from kneeling, Kalasin surrendered to Kaddar’s coaxing her on a camel ride through Thak City’s teeming streets where goods from every corner of the world were sold in an overwhelming array of odors and colors as every language spoken throughout the vast empire filled the air, fusing into a single strain of incomprehensible but marvelous babble. Their journey through the city ended at the Graveyard Hag’s temple, which gleamed from its recent restoration after Kaddar took the throne.

Stepping into the cool shade of the temple–welcome after the blazing brightness of the city streets–Kalasin admired the tiled mosaic in the antechamber that depicted her husband’s return to the worship of Carthak’s traditional deities after his uncle’s reign where the only god worthy of reverence was the emperor himself. In the mosaic, the sun shone like a halo over Kaddar’s golden crown as he stood in the temple entrance, reopening it after his uncle’s neglect, to the cheers of the bowing masses in the courtyard below. 

“They worshiped you like a god more than they ever did your uncle.” Kalasin’s trailed a musing finger over the smooth tile of her husband’s face preserved forever on the wall of the temple he had restored to glory. 

“All I had to do was give them their old gods back in order to be praised like one. Remarkable my uncle never figured that out.” Something in Kaddar’s desert dry tone caused empathy for the fifteen-year-old boy he had been not long ago, fighting to control and rebuild the greatest empire in the world, to surge through her. He had been young to inherit a country on the cusp of collapse and civil war. 

“You’ve done much to restore Carthak, and you deserve to be praised for more than merely bringing back the gods.” Kalasin moved her hand from the mosaic to clasp Kaddar’s. 

“We’ll do even more together.” Kaddar guided her fingers to his lips for a tender kiss. “Our reign will be a new beginning for Carthak.”


End file.
